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I will use this thread to post significant updates on Firefox. And want you all to contribute by not creating similar threads , we can have all the discussion related to Firefox 4.0 here. It will be wonderful if you also post your search here. :)

Around 17,000 changes were added since first 3.7a1pre build!

Firefox 4 Features

Dowload Hourly

Download Nightly

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https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/896934-meet-firefox-401/
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The DirectWrite rendering is nice, but it adds about 18 seconds to my startup time and it sounds like the devs aren't sure they're gonna get it done by release time.

And per-process plugins don't magically make them stable, it reduces the likelihood of the entire browser crashing due to a plugin. Hopefully they implement each tab in a separate process, though it worries me a little bit what that would do to memory usage.

Using it now... something don't look right as far as how they put tabs on top... and when you have the bookmarks bar on... it's like the bookmark folders and titles are not center. Hmmm.

Oh, and it doesn't seem to render as fast as Chrome 5, that's for sure. Neowin Forums loaded noticeably slower for me.

Didn't Opera come up with their dreadful rendition of tabs on top after Chrome?

I think Opera had an option to put tabs on top first, but not 100% sure on that.

Anyways to respond to my first remark, here is a side by side comparison of this version of Firefox and Chrome 5. I think Chrome wins. :)

2w7094o.png

Pretty good. Is that look the default one, or is it just you customizing it?

no search bar. no bookmark bar. small icons.

The rest is default. Tabs don't look good yet, I think once they fix the glass issue and make the area where the tabs are glass (like Chrome) it will look better.

The theme isn't finished yet, so it's not going to look right (It's still an Alpha)

...

Hopefully they implement each tab in a separate process, though it worries me a little bit what that would do to memory usage.

Like Chrome, memory usage would shoot up.

I think they're aiming for a process per domain, so 4 tabs open with Neowin would be a single process.

Edit: Firefox supports Aero glass perfectly well, although it's disabled due to a slightly unrelated bug (Which when you hit it, shows off how badly GDI drawing interacts with Aero)

I think Opera had an option to put tabs on top first, but not 100% sure on that.

Anyways to respond to my first remark, here is a side by side comparison of this version of Firefox and Chrome 5. I think Chrome wins. :)

2w7094o.png

Chrome's rendition of Bold fonts still sucks, compare the fonts on lowermost bar.
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